Air-Fryer Lemon Puff Pastry Bars

This is the kind of recipe that proves a frozen sheet of puff pastry is one of the great cheat-code ingredients of home cooking. Two sheets of puff (top and bottom), a generous layer of lemon curd (jarred is fine, homemade is better), sealed and cut into squares, air-fried at 200°C until the pastry puffs golden and the curd starts to bubble through the edges.

Twelve minutes of work, twenty-five minutes total, and you have something that looks like a bakery hand-pie and tastes like the lemon tart you'd serve at a dinner party.

The trick is sealing the edges properly. Brush the bottom sheet with beaten egg around the perimeter where the curd ISN'T. Press the top sheet down firmly. Crimp with a fork. The egg acts as glue when it bakes — the seal holds and the curd stays inside (mostly; some oozes through, which is the point and looks beautiful).

The photo shows the finished bars on parchment: deeply golden pillowy squares dusted with powdered sugar, one broken open to show the bright yellow curd oozing out, lemon zest curls scattered around. The kind of dessert that looks more difficult than it is.